This invention relates to a hinge connector having a flexible board and to an electronic apparatus including the hinge connector.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2003-133764 discloses a foldable mobile telephone (flip phone) as an example of an electronic apparatus. The mobile telephone comprises a first housing having a display portion, a second housing having a numeric keypad portion, and a flexible board extending between the first and the second housings. The mobile telephone further includes a two-axis hinge mechanism by which the first and the second housings are coupled to each other to be rotatable with respect to each other. The two-axis hinge mechanism has a main body and three hinges attached to the main-body. Two of the hinges are disposed along a first axis and spaced from each other. The remaining hinge is disposed along a second axis perpendicular to the first axis. The flexible board is wound around one of the two hinges disposed along the first axis and around the hinge disposed along the second axis.
The above-mentioned electronic apparatus is disadvantageous in the following respects. Since the two-axis hinge mechanism has a complicated structure, an assembling operation is troublesome. In addition, the two-axis hinge mechanism and the flexible board are separately prepared and, upon assembling the electronic apparatus, the flexible board is wound around the two-axis hinge mechanism to be mounted. Thus, a cumbersome procedure is inevitably required.